Editorial: Wait for facts before deciding

Published: Tuesday, August 19, 2014 at 10:16 PM.

Here’s what we know: Michael Brown is dead. A police officer in Ferguson, Mo., shot him.

Brown is black. The officer is white.

Beyond that, we don’t know all the facts. We don’t know whether the officer, Darren Wilson, shot the unarmed 18-year-old because Brown was getting ready to attack him and the officer feared for his life. We don’t know whether the officer shot Brown because he’s racist, was having a bad day or some other reason.

The fact is, we don’t know what happened about noon Aug. 9 in the St. Louis suburb. Now, you may think you do. You can almost certainly find at least one media outlet that agrees with your point of view in this never-ending news age – on this or any topic, whether you believe one side or the other. But the responsible news organizations do not take sides, instead, they are publishing stories and videos that present the facts and nothing but the facts.

And that’s what we need right now. The facts. We must presume that Officer Wilson is innocent until proven guilty. He deserves due process, just as we would expect Michael Brown to have if he were alive today. In the end, he may be the officer who shot an unarmed teenager in cold blood, but we cannot assume that before all the facts come out.

It’s possible that in the end Officer Wilson will be proven to be no better than Brown, who is seen on videotape stealing cigarillos from a nearby liquor store shortly before the shooting. No better than the looters who ransacked local businesses for days – as a sign of protest.

Here’s what we know: Michael Brown is dead. A police officer in Ferguson, Mo., shot him.

Brown is black. The officer is white.

Beyond that, we don’t know all the facts. We don’t know whether the officer, Darren Wilson, shot the unarmed 18-year-old because Brown was getting ready to attack him and the officer feared for his life. We don’t know whether the officer shot Brown because he’s racist, was having a bad day or some other reason.

The fact is, we don’t know what happened about noon Aug. 9 in the St. Louis suburb. Now, you may think you do. You can almost certainly find at least one media outlet that agrees with your point of view in this never-ending news age – on this or any topic, whether you believe one side or the other. But the responsible news organizations do not take sides, instead, they are publishing stories and videos that present the facts and nothing but the facts.

And that’s what we need right now. The facts. We must presume that Officer Wilson is innocent until proven guilty. He deserves due process, just as we would expect Michael Brown to have if he were alive today. In the end, he may be the officer who shot an unarmed teenager in cold blood, but we cannot assume that before all the facts come out.

It’s possible that in the end Officer Wilson will be proven to be no better than Brown, who is seen on videotape stealing cigarillos from a nearby liquor store shortly before the shooting. No better than the looters who ransacked local businesses for days – as a sign of protest.

Here’s what we do know:

• The videotape shows Brown stealing cigarillos.

• Brown and Dorian Johnson were walking in the middle of the road when Wilson stopped them.

• Wilson, a 28-year-old with six years’ experience on the Ferguson police force, ordered Brown and Johnson, 22, to the side of the road.

After that, the stories change. Police say a physical tussle between Brown and Wilson ensued, starting with a struggle through the door of Wilson’s patrol car. Johnson says Wilson was racial profiling the two men and shot Brown as he tried to surrender.

There are witnesses; there are videos; there are tweets. It is likely police will be able to piece together exactly what happened with cooperation from witnesses and curious onlookers.

Another aspect of this unfolding story is the way police treated reporters who were just doing their jobs in the aftermath of the shooting.

Last week, police needlessly arrested two journalists who were working on stories inside a McDonald’s in Ferguson. The Washington Post’s Wesley Lowery said police arrested him, along with a reporter from the Huffington Post, after giving them confusing information about leaving the restaurant. And after slamming him into a soda machine.

This past weekend, police did everything they could to prevent reporters from doing their jobs, including detaining them and threatening to arrest them.

Reporter and photographers generally are law-abiding citizens; they know what can and will happen if they do not obey police commands. Rarely is it a problem, especially when civil minds prevail.

We live in a free society, and journalists are the watchdogs of it — especially in highly controversial and explosive cases like this one. Police should have the same goal as the journalists they’re threatening: to ensure all the facts are reported, accurately.

Police should be above reproach. Officers are put through a battery of tests before they are hired to ensure they have the mental as well as physical capacity to serve the public. They are supposed to have the public’s trust, setting the example as law enforcement officers, not law breakers. Not every officer conforms: We know just from cases in Polk County that some officers go astray. Think back a decade to “Dr. Deputy,” a sheriff’s deputy who pretended to be a doctor to provide physicals to the unsuspecting. Or just last year to Lakeland police Officer Julio Pagan, who is facing a sexual assault charge. We cannot reduce the high regard in which we hold police officers, and we should not tolerate cops gone wild. But, we must wait until all information is released before drawing any conclusions.

A version of this editorial first appeared in the The Ledget, a Halifax Media Group newspaper in Florida.